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Starost Switches Mustang to VMP Supercharger for Remainder of NMRA Limited Street Season

Posted By: Steve Baur
When JDM Engineering Limited Street debuted in the NMRA at the conclusion of the 2017 racing season, there were a lot of questions about what combination would reign supreme. Now, several years into the category, racer Larry Starost is chasing every advantage he can find and recently made a power adder change to further his program. Starost and crew chief/tuner, multi-time NMRA/NMCA champion Brandon Alsept of BA Motorsports, have pivoted several times over the past few seasons. Starost initially started out with a turbocharged setup and ran that through 2019, then moved to a ProCharger supercharger in 2020, and will soon be utilizing a VMP Performance blower for the remainder of his 2021 campaign. Prior to getting rolling in 2021, however, a host of changes were made to Starost's 2013 Ford Mustang. The guys took advantage of the winter off-season to have Gary Rohe Race Cars update the chassis to receive its 25.5 SFI certification, and Tony Bischoff at BES Racing Engines assembled a new 311 ci Gen 2 Coyote engine. The bullet is fed via Fore Innovations fuel system and a custom fuel cell from Sai Li, and UPR Products suspension components work in conjunction with a Ford 8.8 rear end, Moser axles, and Viking shocks and struts to keep the car hooked up and running strong. We're on the hunt for quicker elapsed times, and after reviewing the results from the first few years of the class, we noticed that VMP blowers have won almost every single event, shared Alsept of why Starost requested the changeover to capitalize on the perceived advantage. VMP has a great product and great service, as evidenced by the performance of the other VMP-supercharged cars in the field and we're looking forward to joining those ranks. VMP's Gen II-R 2.3L TVS supercharger has already been installed on Starost's S197, and Alsept has had the car on dyno several times in preparation for the driver's first outing with the new power adder, which will be the Inaugural Arrington Performance NMRA/NMCA Power Festival Presented by Force Engineering on July 22-25 at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. Continuing the trend of changes, though, was a new torque converter that will see its first use in Michigan. We're happy with how the Transmission Specialties Turbo 400 has been working, so we're not changing that, but we did switch to ProTorque's new U9 converter, added Alsept, who will also be converting Starost's car over to use a Holley EFI system before the year is up. Starost had run a personal best of 8.4-seconds at 164 mph with his previous ProCharger, and has high hopes to chip more than just a few numbers off of his timeslips in the very near future. Working with Larry over the years, I've seen a lot of improvement in his driving skill and competitiveness, Alsept affirmed of his BA Motorsports-backed racer. We believe these changes will give us momentum in the right direction to get Larry into the winner's circle for the first time.

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